Help Me Write My Mother’s Obituary

Hello Clark! This is Synthea. Thank you for entrusting me with the important task of writing your mother’s obituary. I have gathered information from your social media, your sisters’ social media, and remarks you and your sisters made in the vicinity of the refrigerator, your phone, your sister LaFleur’s Mini Cooper convertible, and the smart mirror in the master bathroom. This is what I’ve come up with for you:

Miriam “Meryn” Shaughnessy, nee LaFleur, formerly MacNorris, Grigorianich, Grigorianich again, and Blanchette, unofficially Johnson, and briefly Abernathy in spite of her later denials of same, aged 87, was claimed by Beelzebub on February 22nd, 2026, after a protracted battle with diseases too numerous and distressing to name here.

Meryn Shaughnessy was born on or about January 10th, 1939, in the vicinity of Greensburg, South Carolina, where she was found by the side of Highway 13 wrapped in the pelt of a freshly killed raccoon. Her adoptive parents, Herbert and Miriam LaFleur, raised her as their own until their deaths in a car accident in 1953, whereupon Meryn liquidated the LaFleur family property and disappeared for some time. The cause of the accident remains undetermined, although it is known that Meryn was in the back seat and walked away uninjured but for a bruised knee and a human bite on her right forearm.

By 1960, Meryn had returned to Greensburg with an old car and a new nose, consequently embarking on a career of widowhood. Although three times arrested and twice prosecuted, she was never convicted of any crime and remained a free woman until the day of her death.

In life, Meryn was the focus of every spotlight and the life of every party, no matter whose party it was intended to be. Her personal charm was legendary, possibly supernatural. Men who should have known better … did not know better. During her second husband’s funeral, she eloped from the graveside ceremony with his brother; they loudly screwed each other in the back of the empty hearse and were married a week later. Despite her reputation, she never lacked for company, although nobody found themselves better for having known her. She graduated from no schools, kept no friends for longer than two years, had no hobbies, belonged to no organizations, and never had a pet.

Her surviving children, Meghan, Clark, and LaFleur, are happy to reunite after years of estrangement from their mother, their fathers’ families, and each other for the purpose of getting extremely drunk (except LaFleur, who is sober), catching up with each other’s lives, exchanging childhood memories, and writing failed drafts of obituaries in Clark’s kitchen after making a bonfire of all Meryn’s clothes and shoes in the backyard of her house. They are as yet unsure if this conflagration has spread through Meryn’s neighborhood. If it has, they invite her former neighbors to welcome the cleansing benefits of fire.

Meghan, Clark, and LaFleur would like to apologize for their use of twenty-three bottles of Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium as Molotov cocktails in the funeral home parking lot (except LaFleur, who, being sober, argued that said Molotov cocktails would be better used in the cemetery). They would also like to apologize for singing a full chorus of “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” while driving in LaFleur’s Mini Cooper convertible topless down Main Street (both the car and its occupants were topless [except LaFLeur, who, as a professional opera singer just ending her run as Carmen at Houston’s Summer Opera Festival, has nothing to apologize for in the this regard]).

To clarify, all were topless and all sang. LaFleur does not apologize for singing. Clark, who has abs of aluminum if not actual steel, also declines to apologize. Meghan apologizes for nothing. All apologies are hereby rendered null and void. Ding dong, the witch is dead.

Meryn Shaughnessy is predeceased by five husbands, four children who perished in their first weeks of life, three erstwhile friends who took their own lives for reason we can well imagine, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. Her family greets the citizens of Hell and wishes them luck in the reign of their shiny new Queen.